BRUINS BEFUDDLED PAULEY PAVILION AGAIN IS HOME FOR THE CARDINAL STANFORD 86, UCLA 76.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

The UCLA basketball team can manufacture all the indignation it wants about Stanford.

It might want to start manufacturing the type of basketball team that the Cardinal has. One that competes fiercely on the boards, defends its basket like a family nest egg and plays, as you might expect, intelligently.

Stanford did all those things that the Bruins did not and pulled away from UCLA for a 86-76 victory in front of a crowd of 12,243 that had cleared out of Pauley Pavilion by the final minute.

The victory was Stanford's fifth in a row in Westwood, the most ever by a UCLA opponent. The loss, UCLA's second in a row and third in five games, dropped the Bruins (13-5, 5-3) into fifth place in the Pacific-10 Conference.

Casey Jacobsen, the junior All-American candidate, buried a pair of NBA 3-pointers in the clutch, then had a sweet sendoff by emphatically dribbling out the final seconds.

Jacobsen, who last season was accused by the Bruins of guaranteeing a victory at Pauley Pavilion, drew the Bruins' ire this week simply by saying he enjoyed playing there. The Bruins referred to this as trash-talking.

``I'll just say this,'' said Jacobsen, who endured taunts by the UCLA student section. ``No matter what kind of quote they put on the board, I just want to let my play do the talking. I do enjoy coming to play here and who wouldn't? That's a fact.

``But I don't disrespect the program. I like all the players a lot, and we're going to have to play them again.''

Stanford coach Mike Montgomery again shook his head over the Bruins' indignation.

``Why would you have to manufacture intensity?'' Montgomery wondered. ``We've won the conference the last three years. Shouldn't that be enough?''

If the Bruins were angry, they didn't play like it.

They jumped to an eight-point lead early but missed eight consecutive shots to watch that lead disappear. The Bruins made just 40 percent of their shots, were outrebounded by Stanford and watched as one Cardinal after another beat them off the dribble to the basket.

``We need to start playing basketball and not letting the outside stuff affect us,'' UCLA guard Billy Knight said. ``We have to get our act together.''

And if the Bruins don't feel badly enough about that, then they can consider how they were done in by three players from their own backyard: Jacobsen, Julius Barnes and Josh Childress, who all are from Southern California.

The three scored 57 points, grabbed 21 rebounds and never were better than at the end, scoring 19 in a row as Stanford stretched a one-point lead at the nine-minute mark to as many as 13 in the final minute.

The Bruins might have expected to be hurt by Jacobsen. But Barnes, an athletic but erratic junior, scored a game-high 23 points, and Childress, a spindly 6-foot-7 freshman, added 14 points and a game-high 12 rebounds, five more than any Bruin.

``Wow, he had that many,'' Knight said. ``That shows we didn't box him out and he out-competed us.''

They also out-smarted the Bruins. UCLA center Dan Gadzuric, who promised to play more intelligently after fouling out of three consecutive games, picked up his first foul 75 seconds into the game.

He got his fourth, with 13:54 to play, by contesting an entry pass to Stanford center Curtis Borchardt - 20 feet from the basket.

Gadzuric, freed up when Stanford helped on defense, scored 19 points on 9-of-12 shooting and grabbed seven rebounds. But because of foul trouble, he was on the court for only 20 minutes.

When Gadzuric left with his fourth foul, the Bruins were ahead 54-52. Shortly after he returned, with 5:41 to play, Jacobsen hit a 23-footer to put the Cardinal ahead 68-60.

Matt Barnes stepped up in Gadzuric's absence and led UCLA with 20 points, six assists and four steals. He also collected six rebounds.

``Barnes was a tough matchup for us,'' Montgomery said. ``Both our (power forwards, Teyo Johnson and Justin Davis) ended up with four fouls.''

Barnes brought UCLA within 68-63 on a drive to the basket. But Julius Barnes answered with a jumper over Ryan Walcott and Jacobsen rained in another 3-point and the Bruins never got closer than nine.

The Bruins, who lost back-to-back games for the first time since February 2000, now must regroup Saturday against Cal, which along with USC, Oregon and the Cardinal (12-4, 5-2) are ahead of the Bruins in the standings.

``We're a great team, and we have a lot of scorers, but we don't play as a team, including myself,'' Matt Barnes said. ``I jacked up some 3s that I shouldn't have. We need to shake this loss.''

As for what ails the Bruins, all they had to do was look across the court.

``They stayed in a team structure,'' UCLA forward Jason Kapono said of the Cardinal. ``Even though their shots didn't go in, they hustled and played defense. They play sound. If things go good or bad, they stay with their game plan. They kept fighting and fighting.''

--Note: Rico Hines, who was expected to return from a concussion, experienced headaches Thursday morning and did not dress for the game.

CAPTION(S):

photo, box

Photo:

(color) Stanford's Casey Jacobsen goes between UCLA's Matt Barnes, left, and Billy Knight.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

Box:

PAC-10 STANDINGS